


And of course it happened because of a bet

by pheephy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bets, Casual, F/M, M/M, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Seventh year, everyday marauder life, mostly it's about this bet, no beta we die like men, so much fun, the pairings are less important than the fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:28:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23245528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pheephy/pseuds/pheephy
Summary: The story of Lily and James Potter has been told quite a lot. In many different ways: happily, sadly, scarily, ridiculously. But how it really happened only very few people know. Although of course, most people should have guessed, after all, it’s the Marauders we’re talking about. The pranksters, the jokers, the jesters of Hogwarts. Of course it happened because of a bet.Or Sirius and James try to win an unwinnable bet and lots of cute and funny stuff happens in between.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	And of course it happened because of a bet

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first story in English, and although I am fairly fluent and have read loooots myself AND put it through all grammar checkers I know of it might be visible in my writing. Style-wise, mostly, probably. You've been warned.  
> There is a German kind-of original (though they are both by me, so it's a chicken-and-egg-situation) here.

The story of Lily and James Potter has been told quite a lot. In many different ways: happily, sadly, scarily, ridiculously. But how it really happened only very few people know. Although of course, most people should have guessed, after all, it’s the Marauders we’re talking about. The pranksters, the jokers, the jesters of Hogwarts.  
Of course it happened, as everything happens with the Marauders. It started with an idea (“Hi, I’m James, welcome in this dorm. I heard there is a Giant Squid in the lake, you wanna set him free?”)  
Of course it happened although Remus always doubted all these ideas (“Guys, don’t you think it might not be the best idea to build a pyramid out of the stairs in the Great Hall?”).  
Of course any doubt was nipped in the bud by Sirius (“Nonsense, the teachers will be as small as Flitwick for just an hour and after that everything will be alright. What could possibly go wrong?”)  
And of course it happened because of a bet. 

The system of idea, doubt by Remus, invalidation of this doubt by Sirius had proved to be utterly useful for over six years. Naturally, every single one of Remus’ doubts had turned out to have been absolutely justified and the ideas had mostly found their end in detention, but except for one little fire in the Forbidden Forest none of their pranks had had a serious influence on their lives or those of their fellow students and they had a lot of fun.  
The idea which in retrospect had the biggest effect on them was one of Peter’s on a Wednesday in their last year. It was raining outside and Remus and Peter were studying Charms – well, Peter was studying and Remus was murmuring spells he had learned by heart weeks ago. With a fanfare, the portrait hole opened and James and Sirius came in (the idea with the fanfare had come from Sirius because he reckoned he didn’t get enough attention upon entering the common room). Most of the Gryffindors, who had already gotten used to the fanfare, ignored the two Marauders and Remus would have loved to follow suit, but unfortunately Sirius quickly crossed the common room and came to a stop directly in front of him.  
“You should not bet against me if it’s about James,” he said, grinning, frowned at the books that were stacked on the surrounding chairs, shrugged and sat down on Remus’ lap. “I just know him too well.”  
Remus levitated a pile of books from a chair on the ground and then tried to push Sirius off of his knees.  
“Sit down here. Over there is my jacket, in the pocket should be a few knuts, you can have them as wager,” he said.  
“I don’t want your money,” Sirius declared, not showing the slightest intention to free Remus’ legs. “The triumph is enough for me. Just admit that Prongs and I are mentally linked to each other and no one can…”  
“Yeah, sure,” Remus interrupted. “I admit it. And now get off of me or I hex you to the ceiling with a Levicorpus.”  
Grumbling Sirius stood up and sat down on the presented chair. There was a moment of silence, just long enough for Remus to finally focus on his notes again. Precisely when he had forgotten his friends, Peter piped up.  
“So, this being mentally linked…” he asked thoughtfully. “How can I imagine that?”  
“We know what the other is thinking,” James explained, “Sometimes even before he knows.”  
Remus raised his eyebrows.  
“That’s called Legilimency,” he said sceptically.  
“No,” said Sirius, “that’s called being soulmates.”  
“Yeah, sure, soulmates. I, too, know what Sirius is thinking,” said Remus.  
“No you don’t,” Sirius pouted.  
“That you think you’re great, that we haven't pranked McGonagall for quite a while and that you’d like to have a grilled cheese sandwich now,” Remus listed.  
“Yeah, but I always know what Padfoot is thinking,” James explained. “Not only when he’s hungry. Any time, 24/7.”  
“Bet you don’t?” Peter intervened again.  
“How would you even test something like that?” Remus asked surprised.  
“You don’t talk for yourselves, but the other. When Sirius is asked a question James has to answer it how he thinks Sirius would,” Peter explained further. Remus still was not completely convinced.  
“Sure, how long? An hour?” Sirius asked motivated.  
“A week.” Peter grinned widely.  
“A week?” James exclaimed startled.  
“Well, it shouldn’t be a problem for you.” Now Remus was grinning himself. He found the idea very interesting and was excited to see it played out. “Since you know each other’s thoughts the whole time...”  
James and Sirius shared a look. Everyone knew that both Marauders suddenly were not sure at all how well they knew the thoughts of the other boy. But everyone also knew that they would move heaven and hell to win this bet.  
“Okay, let’s settle the wagers,” Peter said and drew his quill. Eventually, they had started to write down their bets. That had mostly three reasons: Number one, everyone knew what it was about and no one could say in the end that they didn’t know about this wager or that condition. Number two, there were sometimes ridiculous amounts of those and they were so creative, that no one could have kept track of them otherwise. And number three, Sirius wanted to document them all for future generations.  
“Okay.” Remus cleared his throat. “Peter and I win if till the end of the week you two either hurt each other or one of you spoke for himself. If you really do speak for each other the whole week and the other is satisfied with what you said, you win. You got that, Pete?”  
“Yes.” Peter nodded. “Now the wagers.”  
“If we win,” Sirius started, “Remus needs to do one thing for me I’ll come up with until then.”  
“Is that really necessary?” Remus asked. “You know what, we’ll win anyway. Write it down, Wormtail.”  
“If we win, we build a spell into the map that it insults Snape if he tries to read it,” said Peter. “And I can have the last word.”  
“When we win, you two need to wear a shirt with 'James, we love you!’ on it to the next Quidditch match,” James demanded.  
“Ok, and if we win, James stops trying to ask out Lily and Sirius isn’t allowed to use hair gel for a month,” Remus finished.  
“But if James messes it up, I can still use hair gel, right?” Sirius worried.  
“You’re a team,” Peter reminded them.  
“That means no,” translated James.  
“You can still give up,” Remus offered.  
“Please, how long do you know us? Six and a half years!” Sirius blew a streak of hair out of his eyes. “Did we ever step down from a bet?”  
Finally, they all signed. Remus and Peter wrote their names, Sirius wrote ‘woof!’ in a speech bubble and James drew a…  
“James, what the hell is that?”  
“A stag, obviously.”  
“Oh, I thought it was a chestnut man.”  
“What’s this?”  
“The tail.”  
“Stags have a tail?”  
“Yeah, a little one.”  
“Sure you have a little…”  
“Sirius!”  
Remus looked out of the window to the big clock on the castle’s outside wall.  
“The bet ends Saturday, November 21st at exactly 4:37 pm. And…you’re on.”  
“James already regrets doing this,” Sirius immediately blurted out and earned a surprised look from his best friend. “And now he’s surprised at how well I know him.”  
“Sirius wants to know how this is supposed to work,” said James. “Will you watch us the whole time?”  
“We trust in your honour as marauders that you won’t cheat,” explained Peter.  
“And I put a betting spell on the paper…” said Remus.  
“James is shocked,” pressed Sirius out, visibly caught off-guard himself.  
“Sirius as well,” James hurried to add.  
“Well then.” By this time Remus was in a significantly better mood than before. Because after these first few seconds he was sure to win this bet. “I love bets!”

So the week began. James talked about Sirius’ hair and girls he had slept with and cared as little about their names as Sirius usually did. Sirius talked only about Quidditch and did not miss an opportunity to try to convince Lily to go out with James. Remus spent the better part of his time explaining to various people what the two Marauders had come up with now and Peter almost died of laughter.  
So the Saturday passed by and the Sunday as well and everyone, especially James and Sirius themselves, were surprised as to how well the two of them knew each other and how well they were in sync.  
However, then came Monday.  
“Good morning.” Professor McGonagall was in a surprisingly good mood for one lesson of Transfiguration with the Marauders. “Where are Mr Potter and Mr Black?”  
“I think they wanted to skip,” explained Remus.  
“Tell them it’s no use and I will find out what they did, anyway.” The professor turned to the board and touched it slightly with her wand, so the chalk started to write magically controlled.  
“And how am I to do that?” Remus asked. “Without leaving the room?”  
“Oh, please.” McGonagall gave him a pitiful look. “Do you really think I’m not aware that you have three different means of communicating with them right now without even standing up?”  
Remus smiled slightly.  
“I have five.”  
“Well, use the one that least disturbs my lesson, please.” The Professor sighed. “Let’s start with Transfiguration then…”  
James and Sirius showed up eight minutes late after Remus had contacted them (we don’t want to further explain the way he had done it, but because we are talking about the Marauders it can be assured that there were at least three and exactly seven school rules broken in the process).  
“Mr Potter, Mr Black.” McGonagall adjusted her glasses. “What an honour. And only ten minutes late.”  
“With all due respect, it was just eight and a half,” James said. Usually it was Sirius who pointed this out. Remus nodded impressed.  
“What excuse do you have for me today?” McGonagall pulled out a little notebook and a quill.  
“We got lost,” said Sirius.  
“Sirius wants to add something I don’t want to say out loud,” James frowned.  
“James knows that this is against the rules.” Sirius grinned.  
“Sirius wants to add that he never makes up such cheap excuses himself, but he needs to adjust,” pressed James out from clutched teeth.  
“Sit down,” interrupted the teacher this conversation and put her notebook back into the desk drawer. She had started writing down the Marauders’ excuses five years ago when they had been in third grade because she thought they were too creative to not be remembered. By now it was almost full and her favourite was still “We were in the library and wanted to go to class, but then the Giant Squid showed up and wanted to eat us.” Because firstly the Giant Squid was a herbivore, secondly he hadn't left the lake in his life and thirdly Mr Black had never set foot in the library and Mr Potter only when Miss Evans was there.  
“Since you decided to skip the first eight and a half minutes of class and due to that missed the revision of the last lessons, could you please summarise them, Mr Potter?”  
“James has no idea what we talked about last time,” said Sirius immediately.  
“Sirius has no idea himself and should try a bit harder to read my thoughts unless he wants to lose this bet.”  
“James remembers that we talked about Metamorphmagi…” Sirius murmured. “Who can change their temper at will…no, their clothes…er…blood type! I’m sure it was about the blood type!”  
Professor McGonagall sighed and turned to Peter and Remus.  
“Enlighten me,” she requested.  
Peter quickly informed her about the content of the bet and after the Professor had referred to it as “stupid tomfoolery” she went on with her lesson, ignoring the two black-haired Marauders.  
“Phew, so this is harder than James thought,” Sirius said after school ended.  
“Sirius thinks about just not attending class for the rest of the week,” added James.  
“But James is afraid that the bet might be lost by doing that.”  
“James’ fears are justified.” Remus grinned. “But you can give up at any time.”  
“Never.”, said James and Sirius in unison.

The bet ended surprisingly quickly, Wednesday afternoon.  
The Marauders were sitting in the comfortable reading corner of the library (where they actually spent quite a lot of time, contrary to popular belief) and did their homework. They were mature enough by now to be able to sit together and each work in silence. Their friendship had gone through so much already that it sometimes was ok to just appreciate each other’s company, and work.  
In the reading corner were desks but no wooden chairs, only armchairs. This corner was reserved for the N.E.W.T.-students because these numerous hours of studying would have been just brutal on normal chairs.  
Remus was sitting cross-legged on a couch and was writing a Potions essay, Peter had shifted to the edge of his chair and was scribbling on his celestial map and James was sitting in his armchair and had pulled up his legs to his chest. His shoes were left under the chair on the ground and on his knees he had his dream journey for which he was inventing dreams. He had decided to attend the additional course “Divination” (Dumbledore didn’t want to establish it as a regular subject) and had already regretted it the first week. And Sirius was lying on the couch, his legs dangled over the armrest and his head was in Remus’ lap. He was writing a list no one knew exactly, what for, but because it was Sirius, everyone just assumed it had something to do with a prank.  
The peaceful silence that was such an infrequent guest with the Marauders was interrupted when Lily entered the reading corner. James glanced up und followed her every move with his eyes. She walked over to him, just to then walk by him demonstratively to the encyclopaedias.  
“Hey, Lily! Will you go out with James?” Sirius called, sat up and swung his legs over the armrest to the ground. By now Lily ignored anyone who asked that question.  
“That’s still Evans for you.”, she answered loudly without turning around.  
“Oh, come on, Evans! Just one date!” begged Sirius.  
“No.” She moved her finger along the spines of the books, looking for the right volume.  
“Please?” Sirius rose and leaned on the shelf next to her.  
“Forget it.” She pulled out the right book and turned around to Sirius. Her eyes darted over to James and the others for just a second, then back to Sirius.  
“Why not?” he asked.  
“As a matter of principle.” She quickly grinned and then disappeared behind the next shelf.  
“Evans?” Sirius called behind her and she stopped and turned around again.  
“Now, what is it? I have a test in Muggle Studies tomorrow.”  
Sirius grabbed the list he had been writing and thrust it into her hands.  
“In the last few days I have studied James’ thoughts more than ever and I decided to make a list of reasons why you should go out with him. ‘Cause honestly, I have thought more about you than about Quidditch and that’s worth quite a lot. Just…read this and go out with him. Just once. And Remus…I know that we just lost this bet, but I don’t particularly care and I think neither does James. And Evans…” He looked at Lily again. “Right now we are willingly losing a bet for you. If that’s not a good reason to finally at least give him a chance, you really don’t care about him at all.”  
Lily stared at him for a second, then she grabbed the list and took a look at it.  
“…wrote Lily Potter in his Astronomy book a hundred times…got one O in Herbology between lots of As and Ms and that was in the topic of the lily family…did a speech in Potions class about the misuse of love potions…cried when you said no for the hundredth time and yes, he kept track…wrote a poem…” she murmured while reading. Eventually, she looked up and at James who was staring at Sirius in horror.  
“You didn’t…” he whispered, visibly shocked. “Padfoot, tell me this is a joke!”  
He jumped to his feet and wrenched the list from Lily’s hands.  
“Please forget what you just read, that’s only…it’s not important, it’s…” he said in a panic.  
“Okay,” interrupted Lily.  
“What?” He paused and gaped at her.  
“Okay,” she repeated. “I will go out with you. Under one condition.”  
He waited anxiously.  
“I want to read the poem.”  
“What poem?” asked James. She held up the list.  
“This says you wrote a poem for me. I would like to read it,” she said. James went wax-pale.  
“Um…I don’t think you would like it,” he said. “And I don’t even know if I still have it…”  
“Liar!” protested Sirius. “It’s glued to the inside of your suitcase. Where you hexed it with a Permanent Sticking Charm when we were thirteen.”  
Lily chuckled.  
“We…er…we could go upstairs to the dorm and…you can read it,” proposed James, appearing more than nervous.  
“Actually, I still have to learn the titles of all of Shakespeare’s works by heart,” objected Lily. “But I think, I can spare ten minutes or so.”  
James beamed and both of them left the library.  
“Regardless of whether you like it or not…promise you’ll go out with me?” the three boys could hear James ask.  
Peter stood and left as well, saying something about needing another book.   
Sirius turned around to Remus with a wide smile. It disappeared when he saw Remus’ outstretched hand.  
“What…?”  
“Oh, don’t play innocent,” said Remus. “Give me the hair gel.”  
“But it was for a good cause!” Sirius protested.  
“I am willing to shorten your punishment to two weeks,” said Remus. “And to fulfil your demand if I like it.”  
“Demand?” Sirius wrinkled his forehead.  
“Your wager. Something I had to do for you,” Remus reminded him. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. You probably thought about nothing else for the last three days than what you could ask me to do you win.”  
“I haven’t come up with something yet,” Sirius tried to avoid answering.  
“Oh, come on now. I know you, you already knew what you’d demand even before you brought it into the bet,” said Remus. “And I’m really curious what…oh, hey Padfoot, are you blushing?”  
Sirius stared at his feet and muttered something incomprehensible.  
“O-utt-ith-ee.”  
“What was that? Sirius, could you try to…”  
“Go out with me,” said Sirius now, nervously biting his bottom lip. “Please.”  
Remus stared at him for a moment, surprised. Then it clicked.  
“Oh, great, Sirius, awesome joke,” he murmured, a bit annoyed because somehow he wished his friend had meant it.  
“That wasn’t a joke. I mean it. I would…really like to go out with you. Not as friends, but as…something different,” explained Sirius, fiddling around with his tie. Had Remus ever seen him that nervous? Probably not.  
“You mean it?” he asked surprised. Sirius nodded. “That means if I say yes, you won’t laugh at me?”  
“You’re saying yes?”  
“You’re not laughing?”  
“I’m not laughing.”  
“Yes.”  
They stared at each other for a moment.  
“You think…” started Remus, then he stopped talking, biting his lower lip.  
“I think what?” Sirius wanted to know. They were standing closer than ever before, the tips of their noses were just a hand’s width away from each other.  
“You think it would be too soon for a kiss?” Remus whispered.  
And Sirius let actions speak.

“Well and that’s the story of how Lily and James got together,” finished Sirius his speech. “After that week the rest of our last year followed, the beginning of our apprenticeship, finally a proposal, a pregnancy and a super cute little baby, that’s now over a year old. You can thank You-Know-Who for the late wedding. Merlin, that’s probably the first time I joked about him and it wasn’t even funny.” Sirius looked at his notes. “So, I think that’s all I wanted to say. Thanks to the bride and groom for letting me be best man and also for letting me do a speech. Those of you who know me, know how much I love talking. And everyone else now knows as well. But I think I’m finished now.” He smiled at Lily and James and just wanted to sit down when something else seemed to have come to his mind. “Oh, one more thing: You all keep the first weekend in November clear, that’s when I’m gonna get married. To the best man there is. That’s a week after Halloween; we should all be sobered up by then. Thank you very much!”


End file.
